


Forever is in Your Eyes

by taoslefteyelid



Category: EXO (Band), Z.Tao (Musician)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Implied Child Abuse, M/M, TaoHun - Freeform, also i swear i specialize in action comedies for some reason all i publish is emo stuff dkafjkfads, angel au, angst is more of the existential kind, anyways these tags are stupid, basically love me????, but more stuff soon !, but only for one line, have a nice day love you!, i put myself in here too lmao dsjkajkdlsfajklfds, i've been working on this since march and idk, idk - Freeform, look it's this weird moral crisis but it's MY weird moral crisis so uh, lots of crying from the characters but nothing too much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 15:53:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18781414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taoslefteyelid/pseuds/taoslefteyelid
Summary: This is it. This is how it all ends.In some miserable, fucked up way, Zitao is glad that it’s happening, that the world has been spared of him, that the universe had the courage to do what he had never been able to.Huang Zitao is lying in the middle of the street, dying, and he is glad.No one rushes to help him, no one tries to staunch the blood flowing from his wounds, no one calls an ambulance, and he knows why. He deserves this.He can’t see anything anymore, inky blackness pooling in front of him, his brain unable to conjure even the floating shapes that normally plague darkness.The coffee that he fought for a few minutes ago is spilled over his fingers, but only the slight tingle of the burn remains, and that too is slowly fading.Yes, he knows he’s dying, and the only thing he can think of as he hears his own rasping for breath is a wish, another want, another demand.“I wish I was better.”His heart stops.





	Forever is in Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> uh hello! i'm FINALLY posting this fic after so long lkdjfaskfld
> 
> this started with me yelling to kika, and somehow developed into this really long oneshot based around a moral dilemma i struggle with a lot in my life.
> 
> i don't know if it'll be interesting to everyone, but it's a way of venting to me.
> 
> thank you so much for your support, i love you all!
> 
> (also psst happy late birthday urvi and happy early birthday naz)

 

This is it. This is how it all ends.

 

In some miserable, fucked up way, Zitao is glad that it’s happening, that the world has been spared of him, that the universe had the courage to do what he had never been able to.

 

Huang Zitao is lying in the middle of the street, dying, and he is glad.

 

No one rushes to help him, no one tries to staunch the blood flowing from his wounds, no one calls an ambulance, and he knows why. He deserves this.

 

He can’t see anything anymore, inky blackness pooling in front of him, his brain unable to conjure even the floating shapes that normally plague darkness.

 

The coffee that he fought for a few minutes ago is spilled over his fingers, but only the slight tingle of the burn remains, and that too is slowly fading.

 

Yes, he knows he’s dying, and the only thing he can think of as he hears his own rasping for breath is a wish, another want, another demand.

 

_ “I wish I was better.” _

 

His heart stops.

 

\---

 

Zitao’s eyes fly open, searing pain filling his body as he focuses on the man in front of him.

 

The man in question is dressed in a red satin suit, and he has an angry face, the kind that looks terrifying even if your expression is neutral, and he’s tall, very tall.

 

“Let’s see then,” he murmurs, and brings his hand down to touch Zitao’s head.

 

Zitao watches his life flash before his eyes, quite literally. His horrible, horrible childhood, his painful adolescence, his miserable, short lived adult life. Zitao watches as his face hardens over time, watches as he grows bitter, watches as he hurts so much inside that he ends up hurting others. He relives the pain, the betrayal, but most of all, the regret.

 

He regrets it, of course he regrets it. The heavy weight of guilt has become a part of his heart at this point, and Zitao is sure that without it, he wouldn’t know who he was anymore.

 

Maybe that would be a good thing.

 

As quickly as it starts, it’s over, and Zitao feels tears trickling down his face as the man backs away, regarding him carefully.

 

“Pity,” he says, staring at Zitao. “You had a good heart. Maybe…”

 

He trails off, and presses his thumb to Zitao’s forehead.

 

“A second chance.”

 

The minute his thumb touches Zitao’s skin, the pain stops. Zitao starts to feel light, blurred at the edges.

 

Somehow, Zitao knows that his memory is being chipped away at, that the layers of his identity are being peeled away, one by one.

 

He lets out a sigh of relief.

 

Huang Zitao dies for the second time

 

\---

 

Sehun watches as Zitao opens his eyes. He dims the light so that Zitao doesn’t have to squint as much, and sizes the man in front of him up.

 

“Hello,” says Zitao, smiling pleasantly.

 

Sehun smiles back at him, watching as he looks around, watching as he takes in the “room” they’re sitting in.

 

Technically, it’s just a colorless expanse, made for first contact orientation, but room is much quicker to say.

 

Zitao looks back at him.

 

“Hello,” he says again, still smiling. “Who are you?”

 

“Welcome, Zitao. My name is Sehun. I’ll be your training angel.”

 

“My what?”

 

Sehun notices Zitao’s eyelids start to droop. Understandably so, the first journey is very tiring, especially for someone who is still on the human side of things.

 

“I’ll explain later. For now, rest.”

 

Zitao’s smile turns goofier as his eyes lose focus and he starts to slump, obviously unable to stay awake.

 

“You’re very pretty,” he slurs out, right before his eyes close.

 

Sehun isn’t sure if he’s heard him correctly.

 

\---

 

Zitao wakes up again, only this time it’s in a bed. He doesn’t know his name.

 

He sits up, and sees the man from earlier, the pretty one with the nice voice who said something about training and angels.

 

“Good, you’re awake,” the man says, smiling at him.

 

“Where am I again?”

 

“Oh yeah, the memory wipe, I forgot about that,” the man in front of him mumbles, fumbling around, trying to find something in his pockets. He doesn’t seem to yield any results, so he just sighs and looks back up.

 

“Your name is Huang Zitao, and I’m your training angel, Sehun. Now, I know that the concept of angels really existing is probably going to be hard for you to grasp, but believe me, I’m- “

 

“Oh, no, no,” says Zitao, staring at Sehun. “I have no problem believing that you’re an angel.”

 

Sehun tries not to react, but he’s pretty sure his cheeks are tinged pink.

 

“Uh, I- Wow, okay, I really don’t know how to do this. Usually I have the book with me- “

 

“Which book?”

 

“Braving Redemption: The Quest to Not Go to Hell.”

 

Zitao blinks.

 

“Redemption?”

 

Sehun sighs, nodding. He really doesn’t know how to explain all of this.

 

“You’ve been given a chance at redemption. Guess Wu saw something in you.”

 

“Wu?”

 

“Oh, you know. Tall guy, wears all red, looks slightly angry. You probably met him down in hell. Maybe you don’t remember him, I’m not sure how this memory wipe thing works.”

 

“What, hell? Like Satan?”, Zitao asks, blinking up at Sehun.

 

Sehun wrinkles his nose and tilts his head to the side.

 

“Eh, kind of? Humans got a lot of things wrong about how all of this works, made themselves the center of the story. Typical. But yes, hell. Wu acts as what you would refer to as Satan, though your description of him isn’t exactly accurate.”

 

“Wait, I’m dead?”

“Oh, yes. Very dead. Basically, you lived your life on Earth and ended up qualifying for hell, but when Wu screened you, he probably found that you had a good heart or whatever. So, he wiped your identity and sent a quick email to this place, I got assigned to you, and now here we are.”

 

“Wait, so- “

 

Sehun sighs.

 

“This is confusing, I know. I’m here to help you out, observe you for around two and a half months under simulation, and if all goes well- which it should- and Wu’s judgement was right, you’ll stay here, and won’t have to endure pain and torture for the rest of your existence!”

 

Sehun says it way too cheerily, and Zitao stares at him as if he’s unable to wrap his head around any of this.

 

“So, I could still go to hell?”

 

“I mean,  _ technically,  _ yeah, but that’s not likely to happen. While your knowledge is intact, your experiences and memory have been wiped, so you’re a clean slate. If Wu thought you have good in you, you probably have good in you.”

 

Zitao looks a bit confused, so Sehun elaborates.

 

“You still know how things work. All the knowledge you gained while you were alive is still intact. Some parts of your personality may also remain intact, such as your likes and dislikes and your views on existence as a whole, because those are based on what you know. However, you have no access to prior experiences, or any of your memories. Usually, this is because redemption candidates have heavily traumatic memories, and that’s what shaped their “bad” actions. We strip you down to your base personality just to check if you’re inherently good or not.”

 

Zitao nods quietly, and looks away.

 

“Where are we?”

 

“This is where you’ll be living for the next few weeks. It’s a little simulation bubble connected to a city on Earth, so I can monitor you.”

 

“Oh. Cool.”

 

There’s silence for a while, Sehun not quite knowing what to say. Zitao looks at the blue and white bedsheets under his fingers and gently strokes them.

 

“I like these sheets,” he says, turning to Sehun. “Where are they from?”

 

“IKEA.”

 

“Oh. Angels go to IKEA too?”

 

Sehun laughs softly.

 

“How do you think anyone finds their way out of that place?”

 

Zitao opens his mouth in an “O” shape in understanding, fingers still caressing the sheets.

 

“Well, whoever bought them has great taste.”

 

“Thanks,” says Sehun, smile growing on his face. “I did.”

 

Zitao smiles back.

 

\---

 

In the very first day of knowing him, it becomes clear that Zitao never shuts up

. 

It also becomes clear that Zitao is both very strong and very clumsy, and he isn’t aware of it, which is pretty much a recipe for disaster.

 

After Zitao got out of bed, Sehun suggested that he explore the house. In less than five minutes, Sehun hears the sound of glass breaking from the kitchen.

 

Sehun rushes down the stairs, only to find Zitao standing in the middle of the room, clutching half a broken glass in his hand and staring at the shards on the floor.

 

He looks up at Sehun.

 

“I’m so sorry, I just wanted to get some water, but then I think I held the glass too hard, and it just shattered, and…”

 

He trails off, staring at his hand.

 

“I’m not bleeding. Why am I not bleeding?”

 

“You’re dead,” Sehun reminds him.

 

“Ah. That explains it.”

 

Zitao cleans up the glass, smiling cheerily at Sehun when he’s finished, and Sehun swears he can feel his heart twinge at it. But of course, that’s ridiculous. Angels don’t get palpitations because of humans. Definitely not dead humans. Dead humans up for redemption, at that.

 

“So, what are we supposed to do here, exactly?”

 

Sehun shrugs.

 

“Whatever you want, really. I’m just here to observe.”

 

Zitao looks over to him and grins.

 

“Do you like ice cream?”

 

Sehun actually  _ does  _ like ice cream, just as much as any other angel, thank you very much, but this is not how redemptions usually go. Redemptions usually start with the candidate absolutely losing their shit, and a whole week of trying to convince them that they are in fact dead, yet here Zitao is. Barely half an hour in and he’s already broken a glass, accepted that he’s dead, and is now demanding ice cream.

 

“Uh, what?”

 

Zitao blinks at him, grin slipping off his face.

 

“Do you not know what ice cream is?”, he asks, eyes wide as he stares at Sehun as if imploring him to deny this horrifying assumption.

 

Sehun is too wrapped up in wondering exactly why he was suggesting that the both of them go out for ice cream when he’s just woken up with no sense of identity and the two of them have known each other for thirty five minutes, tops, that he isn’t really able to form an articulate response.

 

“I, uh- “

He doesn’t have time to finish, though, because he’s already being pulled out of the door, Zitao babbling in his ear about how “it’s the greatest thing you’ll ever taste!”, and “you’ll love it, there’s so many flavors!”

 

Sehun doesn’t even have time to grab a jacket.

 

\---

Twenty minutes, Zitao explaining each of his favorite ice cream flavors in detail and asking seven different people for directions later, they finally reach an ice cream parlor.

 

“Wait,” says Zitao, suddenly cutting himself off and stopping before they walk in. “What about money? How does that work?”

 

Sehun freezes. He hadn’t thought about that (as if Zitao’s blabbering would have let him). He’s really not good at this training angel thing.

 

He pats his pockets, and by Junmyeon’s good grace, he’s actually carrying his wallet for once in his life. Money is an easy thing to forget, especially when you aren’t human.

 

“I have some, we’re good.”

 

Zitao looks at him.

 

“But that’s not fair!  I’m the one who wanted ice cream, you shouldn’t have to pay.”

 

“No, it’s okay, I’m literally only here to make sure you don’t die of starvation or something-“

 

“I can’t even get a job, I’m dead. How- “

 

“Zitao. Relax. You don’t have to pay me back.”

 

Sehun can see Zitao stopping himself from protesting.

 

“I’ll find a way to pay you back later, I promise.”

 

“ _ Relax.” _

 

Zitao suddenly perks up, and grins at him.

 

“Ready to try ice cream for the first time?”

 

Sehun doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he knows what it tastes like at this point, not when Zitao spent twenty full minutes trying (and failing) to properly describe the wonders of ice cream to him, so he just lets Zitao open the door for him and steps through.

 

Zitao orders for them, some chocolate concoction for himself and fucking Rainbow Unicorn off the kids menu for Sehun.

 

“You seem like you’ll enjoy it,” he hurriedly explains, when Sehun raises his eyebrows when he receives his cup after paying.

 

They sit down at a table with their ice cream, looking awkward as they try to fit in the little pink plastic chairs. Sehun watches as Zitao tries to rearrange his legs to actually fit under the table, until he eventually gives up, resorting to sticking them out the side.

 

The table is a little sticky and Sehun grimaces as his arms touch it when he puts his cup down. It’s a quiet place, especially the corner where they’re sitting, and it smells like ice cream, which is always a good thing.

 

Zitao immediately digs his spoon into the ice cream, bringing it up to his lips and almost moaning in delight.

 

“Oh, fuck yeah,” he says, spoon already making its way back to the ice cream. Halfway through its journey Zitao’s hand freezes and he stares at Sehun, slightly anxious look plastered on his face.

 

“Am I allowed to say that? Does that mean I’m going to hell or something?”

 

“We don’t send people to hell for saying fuck, Zitao.”

 

Zitao relaxes, his spoon digging back into his ice cream. Sehun decides to try his too, looking at the pink and white ice cream with rainbow sprinkles.

 

It tastes like pure sugar. Sehun loves it.

 

“This is great,” he says, picking off the sprinkles and eating them one by one.

 

Zitao sits up straighter and smiles.

 

“I knew you’d love ice cream!”

 

Sehun laughs.

 

“Yeah, it’s pretty amazing.”

 

Zitao grins again, turning back to his ice cream.

 

“So, what do you send people to hell for, then?”, he asks, reaching for a napkin to wipe the ice cream dripping down the side of the cup.

 

Sehun taps his fingers on the table, going through a mental list.

 

“Well,” Sehun says, “stuff like murder, theft, anything enough to guarantee capital punishment in a human court, all of that is pretty much enough to get you a one-way ticket to hell. Candidates for redemption involve people who’ve been selfish and have hurt others their entire life, but at a smaller scale, or maybe people whose intentions were not to cause as much harm as they did.”

 

Zitao listens carefully, absorbing Sehun’s words carefully.

 

“I wonder what I did that was so bad,” Zitao mumbles. “How do they punish those people or whatever?”

 

“Only the really,  _ really,  _ bad ones get torture. Otherwise Wu makes them file his taxes, do his chores, talk to confused telemarketers.”

 

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

 

“The only music they can listen to is the entirety of NSYNC’s discography.”

 

“Oh, damn.”

 

He looks at Sehun, pausing before he takes the next bite of ice cream.

 

“This is kind of unbelievable, you know.”

 

Sehun nods.

 

“Yeah, I get that a lot. I was a bit surprised when you were just willing to accept that I was an angel, just like that.”

 

“No, but you really do- “

 

Zitao takes a moment to actually swallow the ice cream so that he’s not talking with his mouth full.

 

“You really do look like an angel,” Zitao says, eyes wide and sincere.

 

Sehun tries not to blush, but it’s very hard to do. He knows when people are lying, it comes with being an angel, and Zitao seems to truly and completely believe what he’s saying. There isn’t a hint of malice, or even flirtiness, he fully believes that Sehun looks like an angel.

 

“I- uh, thank you.”

 

Zitao waves his hand as if to dismiss it, as if he’d only been stating a fact and Sehun didn’t have to thank him for it.

 

“Your ice cream is going to melt, it won’t taste nearly as good then.”

 

Sehun eats a spoon of his ice cream.

 

It’s sweeter than before.

 

\---

 

Sehun usually doesn’t enjoy redemption assignments. Sure, they’re bearable, living in a pretty cool house for a few months with access to Earth, but they’re not very interesting. Living with a human soul with no experiences and only their base personalities wasn’t exactly ideal for engaging in riveting conversations.

 

With Zitao though, it’s different. Zitao is fun, easy to talk to, and Sehun genuinely enjoys his company. Zitao had immediately offered to do the chores in order to repay whatever expenses Sehun would have to bear on his behalf, and he follows through on it, never asking Sehun to help him do the dishes or anything.

 

Zitao seems to quickly realize that Sehun likes bubble tea and sweet coffee, and that there’s a grocery store right down the street, so when Sehun emerges from his room the third day of them living together, there’s fresh groceries on the kitchen counter and a chocolate bubble tea being pushed into his hand.

 

Sehun beams, and after that it becomes a ritual for Zitao to get bubble tea before Sehun wakes up.

 

Zitao is curious, and when they’re hanging out on the couch watching bad dramas because there’s nothing else to do since the redemption period is just  _ boring _ sometimes, he’ll ask Sehun random things.

 

“So, like, does god exist? Is that a thing?”

 

“God? He’s more of a manager, if that explains it? We call him Junmyeon.”

 

“Is he like your boss?”

 

Sehun blinks, thinking about the one time Junmyeon had to separate Yixing and Chanyeol when they were fighting over who’d get to pick the next song.

 

“More like a parent, if I’m being honest.”

 

Zitao laughs, a high and clear sound.

 

“Who would’ve thought? God is just the dad friend, huh?”

 

Sehun lets a smile spread across his face.

 

“I guess so.”

 

Sehun changes Junmyeon’s contact to “The Dad Friend”.

 

\---

 

Zitao also loves music, apparently. He’s always singing, or humming, and his eyes light up whenever they play music on the little Bluetooth speaker in the living room.

 

Maybe that’s where all the trouble starts, with Zitao’s stupid voice and his stupid smile and his stupid eyes.

 

It’s a normal morning, a week into their redemption assignment. 

 

Thursday. Nothing too special. Close enough to the weekend for moods to be high, but nothing crazy. Normal.

 

They’ve gotten close, with not much else to do than the occasional trip to the city and hanging out together on the couch. They get along well, Sehun thinks, really well. And maybe a thought or two of Zitao’s messy hair and his pretty skin and his nice arms has crossed Sehun’s mind, but he’s pushed that into the back of his head.

 

That’s ridiculous, he tells himself.  Angels don’t get crushes on humans.

 

It doesn’t help that Zitao is funny. Ridiculously charming, too. And so, so kind. Zitao is so kind that Sehun’s heart hurts just looking at him offer old ladies help with the groceries, and helping cats down from trees, and just being a cliched good person in general. Sehun even worries that he’s only doing this so that his chances at redemption improve, but angels can sense emotions and intent, and Sehun knows that Zitao is just doing this because it’s the right thing to do.

 

So, it all starts on that Thursday, a normal morning. Zitao walks into the house with his hair still slightly damp from the early morning shower he had, wearing a perfectly normal pair of jeans and a button down, bubble tea in one hand and Iced Americano for himself in the other.

 

It’s a ritual by now. Completely normal for Zitao to bring Sehun a drink. But Sehun woke up feeling a bit strange today, and when he sees Zitao walk in with that smile on his face and damp hair sticking up wildly, something shifts.

 

Their hands brush when Zitao hands Sehun the chocolate bubble tea, and Sehun turns a pretty shade of pink, and all he can do is silently beg that Zitao doesn’t notice.

 

Zitao, however, decides to connect his phone (department issued, it’s basic professional courtesy to give redemption candidates a phone) to the Bluetooth speaker and selects a song, a soft and gentle piano piece that Sehun feels settle in his chest.

 

He takes a sip of his bubble tea as Zitao turns to him, smiling widely.

 

“I heard this piano piece at the bubble tea place today. It made me think of you, sunshine.”

 

Sehun freezes mid-sip.

 

“Sunshine?”, he asks, staring at Zitao as the piano swells.

 

“It sounds cute. Like you.”

 

Zitao says it so casually, it’s almost like Sehun’s world  _ isn’t  _ tilting on its axis. He isn’t lying. Sehun can tell.

 

_ Oh no. _

 

Zitao smiles at him again, eyes lit up with the music and lips curled comfortably.

 

Sehun’s heart skips a beat.

 

\---

 

In hindsight, Sehun should’ve known it would end up like this. Zitao is exactly his type, what with the nice smile, and the nice voice, and the nice arms, and being stuck with someone for more than a month makes you spend a  _ lot  _ of time with them.

 

Sehun hears Zitao’s morning voice on the days he wakes up early, before Zitao leaves to get coffee, and it’s not doing anything for his quivering heart. He sees Zitao goofy, half-asleep smile when they’re on the couch and Zitao starts to nod off on Sehun’s shoulder. He gets to see Zitao relax around music, see his kind smile when he offers help to anyone, and it’s so stupidly attractive.

 

Zitao also smells like sandalwood and coffee, and the few times Sehun catches a whiff, it feels like heaven. And Sehun  _ lives  _ there, so he knows what he’s talking about.

 

They have inside jokes now, too, and Zitao sometimes drags him out for dinner, and Sehun has never laughed with anyone the way he laughs with Zitao. Redemption assignments are unpopular because of the amount of time you spend away from home, the only contact with your friend group being the occasional text, but with Zitao, Sehun finds that he’s perfectly content.

 

Zitao seems to like nicknames too, and after the Sunshine Incident, Sehun hasn’t heard Zitao say his name once. It’s always “sunshine”, or “Hun-ah”, or “Sehunnie”.

 

Every nickname just makes Sehun’s heart softer, and he’s given up on reminding himself that angels don’t fall for humans. He’s living proof that they do.

 

He’s not too conflicted, there aren’t any rules against it, and if he just keeps quiet, the crush will probably fade, and he won’t have to deal with the embarrassment of telling Zitao he likes him.

 

Except as he’s thinking that, Zitao walks through the door, his steps matching the music that’s playing, and hands him a bubble tea with a smile.

 

Yes, in hindsight, Sehun should’ve seen this coming.

 

Hindsight can be a real bitch sometimes.

 

\---

 

Sehun’s about to pass out.

 

Look, he can’t be blamed for this, alright? He woke up and came downstairs to find Zitao fucking  _ cooking _ breakfast. He’s wearing a goddamn tank top that shows off his perfect fucking arms and an apron over it.

 

Fucking hell.

 

The apron says “Kiss the Cook” on it.

 

It would be a lie to say that Sehun doesn’t want to kiss the lights out of the cook in that very moment. In fact, he’s already imagining it, because he’s a mess like that, almost certain he can feel Zitao’s chest under his fingertips.

 

However, Sehun has been spending the last month or so trying not to do exactly that. He reminds himself that he can’t kiss the cook, because the cook may not kiss back, and Sehun isn’t really ready from that kind of rejection, not from a human he’s supervising. Sehun can get petty, and he doesn’t want to accidentally fail Zitao just because he wasn’t in love with him.

 

“In love.”

 

_ Fuck. When did it get so bad? _

 

“Good morning,” says Zitao cheerily, flipping a pancake. Sehun didn’t know he could flip a pancake. He seems too clumsy for that.

 

“Uh, hey, good morning. What’s going on?”

 

Zitao smiles at him, eyes lighting up.

 

“Go sit down, I made pancakes today!”, he says, sliding the pancake onto a plate. He hands the plate to Sehun.

 

“There’s maple syrup and whipped cream on the kitchen table, Hun-ah. Feel free to load up, I’ll join you in a second.”

 

Sehun makes his way over to the kitchen table, and generously drowns his pancakes in whipped cream and maple syrup. He then proceeds to sit on the kitchen counter, as he digs into his pancakes.

 

“Oh my god,” he moans. “These are amazing.”

 

Zitao grins at him as he tosses an apple in the air and catches it, sitting down next to Sehun on the counter.

 

“I’m glad you like them, I’m planning on becoming a Michelin star chef.”

 

“ _ Really?” _ , asks Sehun, trying not to laugh at the mirthful glimmer in Zitao’s eyes.

 

“Oh yeah. Wanna know my plan?”

 

“Please, I’m at the edge of my seat.”

 

Zitao takes a bite of his apple.

 

“Well,” he says, “firstly, I’m going to rob a bank. Once I do that, you’ll have to send me to hell. There, when I meet Wu, I’ll instantly befriend him using my charisma and wittiness.”

 

Zitao winks at Sehun at that, and Sehun is this close to taking his apron’s advice.

 

“Then, I’ll ask him to give me a get out of jail free card. I leave hell, and then I go to Berlin.”

 

He takes another bite of his apple as Sehun shakes his head.

 

“In Berlin, I build a restaurant with the money I stole from the bank. Business booms. Everyone loves me. Then three years later, I lose my inspiration. I disappear. The culinary world is in shambles.”

 

He’s so dumb, Sehun thinks to himself. So dumb and stupid and charming and kissable.

 

“Little do they know, I’m hiding out in Paris. Waiting, biding my time. I buy one of those stupid chef hats while I’m there. Start a tiny café which hardly anyone ever comes to. Except one day, I hear the teeny bell jangle, and I look up to see who’s entered, and it’s  _ you. _ ”

 

This is too much, he’s in too deep.

 

Zitao continues, oblivious to Sehun’s inner realization.

 

“I look at you, and my eyes start to water. “Blueberry pancakes? Extra whipped cream?”, I ask, as you stare at me and nod, looking almost smitten, surprised that I remember you. Of course I remember you. My inspiration has returned. I regain my Michelin star. Life is good.”

 

Smitten, that’s the word for it. Sehun is so, so smitten.

 

There’s silence for a second as Zitao stares into the distance, probably thinking of his culinary adventures.

 

“You are such an idiot,” says Sehun, breaking the silence.

 

Zitao turns to stare at him, feigning offence, and the look on his face is too dumb and wounded, and suddenly Sehun is laughing.

 

He’s laughing, and he can’t stop, and his very being shakes as he laughs and he laughs and he laughs. Zitao is laughing too, and he looks positively radiant, and for a second, Sehun forgets who the angel in the room is.

 

Their laughter fades out and they stay like that, bathing in the feeling after you’ve laughed so hard you can’t breathe, smiles so wide that their cheeks ache. Zitao looks over to Sehun, and he raises his hand, and oh my god this is  _ so  _ cliché.

 

“You have whipped cream on your- “

 

Zitao’s thumb brushes over Sehun’s upper lip, and all Sehun can see is that stupid fucking apron and the stupid fucking words on it and he’s begging himself, don’t kiss the cook, don’t kiss the cook, don’t kiss the fucking cook.

 

And then Zitao’s pulling his hand away, and Sehun almost sighs in relief, because he didn’t kiss the cook, except then, the cook kisses  _ him. _

 

Zitao leans in and Sehun’s drowning, unable to breathe, unable to think straight, but when Zitao’s lips meet his own, he knows enough to kiss back. Zitao is gentle in this, like he always has been in the time Sehun has known him, and Sehun lets him take the lead, melting. Zitao drags his knuckles down Sehun’s face, and pulls away, resting their foreheads together.

 

Sehun is glad to note that he’s not the only one who’s breathless.

 

“Was that- was that okay?”, asks Zitao, voice slightly shaky and hoarse.

 

Sehun is too shocked and flushed and happy to be able to reply properly.

 

“Finally,” he whispers against Zitao’s lips.

 

This time, it’s Sehun who leans in.

 

\---

 

Whenever Sehun indulged himself in thinking about what would happen if he ever told Zitao about his sudden feelings for him, he thought of something a lot different than what was currently happening.

 

Sehun expected a deep proclamation of love, or maybe a heartbreaking rejection, or maybe for them to start making out right then and there, but none of that happens.

 

Instead, they go about their normal lives, except now when Zitao brings Sehun his bubble tea, it comes with a quick kiss, and when they watch dramas on the couch, they cuddle, Zitao pressing tiny little flutters of his lips along Sehun’s neck.

 

They now hold hands when they walk down the street together, and Sehun silently refers to their outings together as dates. Zitao pulls out his chair for him and strokes his knuckles gently and tells him he looks pretty, and Sehun adores it.

 

They stop sleeping in separate rooms, and just enjoy each other’s company. On days where Sehun wakes up first, he kisses Zitao awake and just enjoys the smile on Zitao’s face.

 

Sehun isn’t sure of what they are at first, and it makes him kinda uneasy, until they go down to the grocery store with pinkies interlocked, and Sehun wanders off to look at the new chocolate in the store and he hears Zitao refer to him as his boyfriend.

 

He kisses him for longer than usual that night.

 

\---

 

Something tells Zitao that Sehun is the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

 

He has no way of knowing. He doesn’t remember a lot of the things that have happened to him.

 

But seeing Sehun smile and laugh is a lot better than coffee, and kissing Sehun could honestly be a substitute for oxygen. It’s like he has stardust in his veins and sunshine in his eyes, and out of everything in Zitao’s fresh new memory, Sehun is the one thing he knows he’s not going to forget.

 

And somehow, he has a feeling that even in his old life, the time he spent when he was alive, nothing was ever as amazing as Sehun. No one would’ve been as kind, as gentle, as pure as Sehun was. Not to him. Otherwise he probably won’t be up for redemption.

 

Something tells Zitao that Sehun is the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

 

Zitao believes it.

 

\---

 

Sehun doesn’t know when stuff with Zitao starts to get deeper.

 

Maybe it’s when Zitao teaches him how to ice skate one evening, one hand carefully resting on Sehun’s waist to make sure that Sehun doesn’t fall.

 

Maybe it’s when Zitao rattles off Sehun’s entire thirty nine word coffee order at Starbucks without a hitch, ignoring the cashier asking for clarification to beam at Sehun.

 

Maybe it’s when Zitao wakes him up in the middle of the night to drag him outside to look at the stars, hand gently entwined in Sehun’s.

 

Or maybe it’s just when Sehun wakes up early one morning, and has all the time in the world to look at Zitao’s relaxed smile as he sleeps. He traces the shape of his eyebrows, the slope of his nose, the curve of his lips. Zitao leans into his touch, and Sehun’s heart flutters.

 

He’s not bold enough to talk about the fact that he’s slowly falling in love, not yet.

 

But he’s aware of it.

 

—-

 

Sehun, however, is also aware that the time till Zitao’s redemption period ends is quickly starting to run out.

 

Humans who live in heaven don’t really see angels that often, and Sehun doesn’t want to let go of Zitao, he really doesn’t.

 

He’s standing in the living room, shuffling his music. Familiar guitar chords start playing, one of his favorite songs, and he lets it play, swaying alone as he thinks of what’s going to happen when this week ends, when the two of them can’t tumble around like this anymore.

 

He’s ready to spend his time wallowing, except he suddenly has arms wrapped around him from behind and lips brushing across his cheek.

 

Zitao turns him around and he goes willingly, arms coming up around Zitao’s neck and Zitao’s hands gripping his waist.

 

“Hey,” he whispers, and Zitao smiles back.

 

“Hi.”

 

They let the music take over the conversation for them, both of them moving in time with it as they hold each other. Sehun has never felt as safe as he does in Zitao’s arms, more adored than he does in Zitao’s arms.

 

“This is a good song,” murmurs Zitao, as Sehun stares at him with glossy eyes.

 

“Mm. You really like music, don’t you?”, Sehun hums, letting his hand caress Zitao’s cheek.

 

Zitao smiles a shy smile, the kind he reserves for when he’s telling Sehun how pretty he is.

 

“Ah, yeah Hun-ah, I do, I really do. Almost as much as I like you.”

 

Sehun pouts.

 

“Not more though, right?”

 

Zitao laughs.

 

“As if that would even be possible.”

 

Sehun sighs happily and relaxes in Zitao’s arms, letting him lead them.

 

“Do you think the other you liked music? The alive you, I mean.”

 

Zitao thinks for a second, growing quiet and becoming serious for a second. With all the personality inside Zitao, it’s hard to keep in mind that the first thing he remembers is Sehun’s face. Sehun worries, worries if that’s the only reason Zitao like Sehun, because Sehun is the first person he remembers knowing, but Zitao assures him it’s not because of that, and Sehun knows he isn’t lying. Because angels know, they always know.

 

“I think that if the other me listened to music, I wouldn’t have been up for redemption.”

 

Sehun strokes his cheekbone, motioning for him to go on.

 

“I don’t think I was… happy. The other me, I mean.”

 

Zitao looks away for a second before he meets Sehun’s eye again. He grins, and again, Sehun forgets that he’s the angel here.

 

“It’s okay though, because otherwise I wouldn’t have met you.”

 

Sehun lets out a weird mixture between a flustered yelp and a laugh, and buries his face in his arm, looking down as they continue to dance.

 

“Are you happy now?”, he asks, after they’ve been quiet for a few seconds with only the music in the background.

 

Zitao brings one hand up from his waist to get Sehun to look at him.

 

“Now?”, he asks, staring into Sehun’s eyes. His face breaks out into another smile. “Yeah. I’m happy. So happy.”

 

He isn’t lying.

 

Sehun’s heart swells with want, something simmering in his chest as he takes in a shaky breath.

 

“Zitao,” Sehun whispers, pulling him closer, leaning in for a kiss.

 

It’s deeper than the ones they’ve shared before, and Sehun  _ needs  _ this, needs Zitao to feel how much he wants him.

 

Sehun whines against Zitao’s lips when he pulls away, grabbing his collar and pulling him in, fumbling backwards.

 

Zitao leans in and kisses him again, this time nibbling at his lower lip, and his hands start to roam, Sehun curving into his touch. Sehun lets out a strangled groan as Zitao moves from nibbling on his lip to lightly scraping his teeth along his jaw.

 

“ _ Yes _ ,” he hisses, as Zitao makes his way down Sehun’s neck. His hands scramble to find a grip in Zitao’s hair, all the while pulling him even closer.

 

“Zitao,” he gasps out, shuddering as he feels Zitao’s hands caress his sides. “Please, please,  _ yes, please,  _ Zitao, I- “

 

He’s cut off by his own gasp when Zitao picks him up, Sehun’s legs wrapped around his waist, as Zitao continues to work at Sehun’s neck.

 

Sehun’s head is still whirling, so distracted by just how strong Zitao is, how Zitao can pick him up like he weighs absolutely nothing, that he doesn’t notice that Zitao has carried him all the way into their room. He figures it out though, when he’s let go of, pressed against the door and kissed within an inch of his life.

 

The door is locked between kisses.

 

\---

 

Sehun may live in Heaven, but he’s never seen stars like this.

 

His vision is blurry, but he can still make out Zitao’s face in the darkness, and he stares up at it.

 

“I love you,” he whispers, and he means it, he truly does.

 

Angels are strange when it comes to love. They are pure beings, true, but emotions as raw and human as love don’t come easily to them. However, when it comes down to it, when they finally and truly believe that someone they know is good and kind and beautiful, it would not take much for them to fall in love.

 

So yes, when Sehun says he loves Zitao, he means it.

 

Zitao stills for a moment.

 

“I love you too,” Zitao responds.

 

He isn’t lying.

 

Sehun goes back to seeing stars.

 

\---

 

Sehun wakes up in the morning with a dull satisfaction in his bones and Zitao holding him close.

 

Zitao stirs when he does, and gently presses a kiss to the back of Sehun’s neck.

 

“Good morning, sunshine.”

 

Sehun smiles, and turns around so he’s facing Zitao, eyes still half closed as they look at each other.

 

“Good morning,” he mumbles, lips curving up at the sides as Zitao leans in to kiss his cheek. His voice is a little hoarse and uneven, but it’s okay, he’s sure Zitao doesn’t really mind.

 

Sehun opens his eyes a little more and stretches, wincing as he does it.

 

“Oh, ow, bad idea.”

 

Zitao cradles his face, looking at him worriedly.

 

“Are you okay? Is it because we- “

 

Sehun colors, looking down as his cheeks grow warmer. It’s stupid to be like this, but he can’t help but get flustered.

 

“I’m fine,” he says, and he can hear Zitao laugh. Stupid Zitao and his stupid laugh with that stupid mouth. Sehun loves him.

 

“Will you get in trouble? For… uh- “

 

“Angels are allowed to fuck, Zitao.”

 

“Really?”, Zitao asks, staring questioningly at Sehun. “Isn’t that like a thing? ‘Blah blah blah abstinence is key’ or something?”

 

Sehun scoffs.

 

“Having sex isn’t a sin or anything, if that’s what you’re asking. As long as it’s consensual and no one is getting hurt in the process, fuck whoever you want.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Sehun decides to bury his face in Zitao’s chest because the covers are warm and so is Zitao, and the way Zitao looks at him is so gentle and loving, and all he wants is to stay there for a little longer. He takes in a long breath, letting Zitao’s scent envelope him, focusing on the sound of his heartbeat.

 

“You smell nice,” he mumbles, and it’s true, Zitao does smell nice. He still smells like sandalwood and coffee and Sehun adores it. Zitao’s hand comes up to rest in his hair as Zitao laughs, and Sehun can feel his chest rumble.

 

“I’ve told you I love you, right?”, he asks, and Sehun can hear the grin in his voice.

 

“It wouldn’t hurt if I could hear it again,” says Sehun, smiling against Zitao’s chest.

 

Zitao laughs again and rolls them over, so that Sehun is resting on top of him, and Sehun can literally see the light radiating from him, the laughter in his eyes and the smile on his face making him almost glow.

 

“Ah, you’re so pretty, sunshine,” says Zitao, and he  _ means  _ it, even though Sehun’s hair is a mess and he probably has dark circles and he needs a shower. “You look angelic,” he whispers, continuing. “Though that shouldn’t really surprise me, huh?”

 

“You are so disgustingly cheesy.”

 

“I love you.”

 

Sehun smiles.

 

\---

 

There’s two days left till Zitao’s redemption period ends, and Sehun is getting antsy. Zitao notices, obviously.

 

“What’s going on?”, he asks, reaching to hold Sehun’s hand from across the table. They’re in a coffee shop, on one of their usual dates. Zitao’s drinking his usual iced americano while Sehun sips on a chocolate frappuccino and a croissant, even though he got breakfast in bed and everything. Sehun sighs.

 

“I just… your redemption period is almost over.”

 

Zitao blinks.

 

“It’s been two and a half months already?”

 

Sehun sighs, putting his glass down and looking at their linked hands.

 

“Yeah, yeah, it’s almost over. We have two days left.”

 

“Well… did I fail? Is that why you’re so upset?”

 

Sehun looks back up so quickly, he swears he can hear the bones in his neck pop.

 

“What? No, no, you didn’t fail, not at all. You’re good, and kind, and Wu was right. It’s not that, I just…”

 

Sehun sighs, and Zitao stares at him searchingly. He runs his thumb across Sehun’s knuckles, the soft piano music playing in the background from the coffee shop’s tiny speakers fading into the background as Sehun focuses on him.

 

“You just?”, Zitao prompts softly, giving Sehun’s hand a little squeeze.

 

“We won’t be able to meet. Once a week, if we’re lucky. And I don’t know, I don’t want to… I don’t want that.”

 

Zitao’s mouth falls open. He seems shaken by this, and Sehun realizes that he didn’t know that angels and humans live separately. He should’ve probably told him how the living arrangements worked, but Sehun has been too wrapped up in his own worries and enjoying Zitao’s company to think about that. He just assumed Zitao would know.

 

“I’m sorry, I should’ve told you- “

 

“No, no, it’s okay, Hun-ah. We can make it work right? I mean, once a week isn’t  _ that  _ bad, right? Or maybe I could move in with you or something, get permission, or…”

 

Zitao voice fades into the background as Sehun’s mind starts to race. A human moving in with an angel wasn’t possible, but…

 

“There is one way,” Sehun says, cutting Zitao off. “There is one way for us to be able to see each other every day, but it’s a lot, and it has to be something you want yourself, it can’t have an ulterior motive.”

 

Sehun explains what he’s thinking off, and Zitao is nodding before he can finish, before he even tries to sell it.

 

“Yes, yes, I’d want to do that.”

 

He isn’t lying.

 

\---

 

Once the redemption period is over, paperwork is usually a simple process. Just take the human’s file, and tick hell or heaven. Simple. Efficient. But no. Sehun HAD to go and fall in love with this human, which is why they’re both currently sitting outside an office. It wouldn’t have been that bad, but Sehun has had to file at least six pieces of paperwork and they’ve stood in twenty different lines, and to top it all off, they’ve been waiting for three goddamn hours.

 

Bureaucracy. What a bitch.

 

It’s alright though, because Zitao holds his hand and tells him stupid jokes, and Sehun gets to laugh at Zitao’s story about the dog who he thought was trying to attack him yesterday, but it really just wanted affection. It’s fine, Zitao makes it fine.

 

The door to the office swings open, and there’s the attendant. It’s someone Sehun knows, and he smiles in greeting and beckons to both of them. They get up, collecting the files they need.

 

Sehun hands the files to the attendant, as protocol suggests, and watches as he rifles through them. He looks up at Sehun, eyes wide.

 

“Woah, you’re asking for a- “

 

“Yes, Chanyeol, we are, now can you let us see Junmyeon?”

 

Chanyeol looks down at the files, back up at Sehun, and then towards Zitao.

 

“Y-yeah, but what’s with all of this? Why?”

 

“I’ll fill you in later, okay? I promise. I’ll introduce the two of you and everything, you’ll love each other.”

 

Chanyeol nods absently and gestures for Sehun to move on while closing the file. Zitao grins at Chanyeol, that stupid, stupid grin.

 

“Your hair look great!”

 

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Sehun can  _ see  _ Chanyeol puff up and his ego inflate. Chanyeol dyed his hair  _ bright  _ red six months ago, and fell in love with it. It’s against the very basic dress code that angels have, no red. There’re copyright issues involving that color which is a whole battle between heaven and hell, and they almost got sued by Wu’s team, except Chanyeol and Wu are friends, so he got a free pass to hang out looking like a Flaming Hot Cheeto.

 

And now that Zitao has decided to compliment him, Chanyeol is never going to shut up about it.

 

Sehun rolls his eyes and tugs Zitao’s sleeve, pulling him towards the inner cubicle where he knows Junmyeon is.

 

They have work to do.

 

\---

 

Junmyeon is fond of Sehun. Of course he’s fond of Sehun. Sehun is nice and kind and functional (for the most part), and Sehun doesn’t dye his hair red (there was a close shave with rainbow hair back in the day, but it resolved itself), so yes, Junmyeon is fond of Sehun.

 

That being said, Junmyeon has never hated Sehun more in his life.

 

He pinches the bridge of his nose.

 

“One more time for me, Sehun, I’m getting a bit old. You want me to make this human an angel? This human, the one who just finished redemption?”

 

Sehun rubs the back of his own neck nervously, while Zitao stands quietly to the side.

 

“Yes?”, he says, slightly sheepish.

 

“Sehun, I- “

 

Junmyeon sighs, and pauses to recollect his thoughts.

 

Zitao seems like a good kid. Sehun says he’s good and kind, so Junmyeon is inclined to believe him. He’d also been extremely sweet, referring to Junmyeon as Mr. God, and his smile was very adorable, reminding him of Sehun’s when Sehun wanted to weasel something out of him.

 

“How do you trust him? How do you know there’s enough light in him to be an angel? I mean, he was up for redemption for a reason- “

 

“Yeah, and he passed it! He’s pretty much the most inherently good and kind human I’ve ever monitored,  _ please _ Junmyeon, I did all the paperwork, and you know how much I hate paperwork.”

 

“I don’t understand, why are you so adamant- “

 

Junmyeon has known Sehun for years. He knows that Sehun is dramatic. He knows that all too well. But he is  _ not  _ expecting Sehun to bust out  _ the most  _ cliché line ever in that situation.

 

“ _ Because I love him!” _

 

The room is quiet as Junmyeon stares in shock at Sehun. A few seconds pass, Sehun staring defiantly at Junmyeon as Zitao coughs awkwardly in the corner.

 

“Sehun, you know you sound like a sixteen-year-old girl in a bad made for TV movie right now, right?”

 

“Yeah, I didn’t think that through, it didn’t really help my case.”

 

“It was very early 2000s of you- “

 

“It’s still true, though.”

 

Junmyeon sighs, and thinks about it.

 

“Alright,” he says, after a while. “Leave the room for a bit, Sehun. Let me talk to him myself.”

 

Sehun opens his mouth to protest, but closes it, shoulders slumping as he turns around. He looks at Zitao, who smiles calmly at him, and Junmyeon is suddenly hit with just how softly Zitao’s looking at him. Sehun leaves, door creaking behind him, and Zitao’s gaze follows him out the room.

 

Junmyeon fidgets with his paperweight, staring at his favorite houseplant as he clears his throat.

 

Zitao turns to him.

 

“Mr. God?”

 

“You don’t- You don’t have to call me that, Zitao.”

 

Zitao blinks.

 

“Yeah, but it feels kind of weird otherwise.”

 

“Just call me Junmyeon. Now sit, we need to talk.”

 

Zitao hurriedly takes a seat on one of the chairs in front of Junmyeon. It’s Junmyeon’s favorite chair in the entire office, nice and soft. The cushion matches his carpeting, Junmyeon is proud of actually managing to make it out of IKEA with that cushion cover. It’s a good chair. He’s quite fond of it.

 

“Do you want to be an angel just so that you can stay with Sehun?”

 

Zitao is already shaking his head.

 

“No, no, I…”

 

Zitao takes a deep breath, fingers tracing patterns on the chair’s cushion.

 

“Sehun is amazing, you know? And anything for him, obviously. But that’s not… that’s not the only reason why.”

 

Junmyeon nods at him to continue.

 

“I mean, I was under redemption for a reason, right? When I was alive, I must’ve been pretty horrible. And, I don’t know, I just want to fix that? I mean, redemption was cool and all, but all it did was check if I was halfway decent. I probably did a lot of damage, and I just…”

 

Zitao trails off, and Junmyeon regards him carefully.

 

“You have a moral compass. Interesting. With your report from before, I was surprised Wu decided to actually grant you redemption, but it seems like he was right.”

 

“If I’m allowed to ask, what did I do exactly?”

 

“I can’t tell you much, it might trigger your memory, and I don’t know how the memory wipe will react to you becoming an angel if that ends up happening, so I’ll have to be careful. I can tell you, however, that you owned a weapons manufacturing company, and there were… issues, with it.”

 

Weapons?”

 

Junmyeon nods, and Zitao’s face darkens, and he looks conflicted, so Junmyeon rushes to comfort him.

 

“That wasn’t you though, not really. You’d been through a lot, a lot of external trauma. It was honestly a wonder you survived it all. One of us actually paid you a visit once, even attached to you for a few months, I think it was Zhoumi, to try and keep you on the right track, give you hope maybe. It didn’t really work. But now it’s better, since at your core it seems that you’re inherently good. With Sehun’s companionship over the past few months, you’ve become quite… interesting. You seem kind. Gentle.”

 

Zitao nods, looking slightly placated, and Junmyeon changes the topic.

 

“What about Sehun? What do you feel about him? He’s rather sensitive, and I don’t want him to get hurt.”

 

“Ah, Sehunnie,” says Zitao, immediately brightening. “He’s… amazing, you know? What’s the word, ethereal. I know it might be early to say this, and you might think we’re rushing into it, but I love him, I really, really do. He’s just so… good, and gentle, and I- “

 

“Right, I get it, you’re in love,” Junmyeon huffs.

 

He truly means it, Junmyeon can tell.

 

“Well,” Junmyeon sighs, “I guess I have no other choice. If you really want this, I’ll allow it.”

 

Zitao whoops, throwing his arms over his head in celebration, only to bring them down as he chokes on thin air.

 

Junmyeon shakes his head as he opens the door to tell Sehun to come inside.

 

“Another disaster angel,” he mumbles. “Great.”

 

Junmyeon turns around as Sehun moves past him to go stand next to Zitao, whose coughing fit has finally ended. Zitao stands up awkwardly, and Junmyeon just stares at them for a second.

 

“Alright,” he finally says. “Grab a pen from my desk, Zitao.  _ Not _ the nice fountain pen. The gel pen. Yeah, that’s the one.”

 

Zitao picks up the pen and twirls it around his fingers, and looks back at Junmyeon expectantly.

 

Junmyeon waves his hand, and contract 162TS materializes, and he pushes it towards Zitao.

 

“Here,” he says, pointing at the dotted line as the contract floats past him. “Sign on the line.”

 

Zitao uncaps the pen, and hesitates for second, holding his breath. Oh no, he’s just as dramatic as Sehun, Junmyeon realizes. Zitao puts his pen to the paper, and signs with a flourish, the contract disappearing with a pop when he finishes.

 

There’s quiet for a second.

 

“Wait, that’s it? No glowy eyes or anything?”, Zitao asks.

 

“This is you becoming an angel after filing paperwork, not an episode of Sailor Moon. You’ll feel a little lighter, and you’ll be able to work miracles and change events down in the mortal world, but your eyes aren’t going to glow. No wings either. I don’t know where humans got that concept from.”

 

“So… I’m an angel now?”

 

“Yeah, welcome to the family or whatever, don’t burn down any buildings,” Junmyeon says tiredly.

 

“That’s an oddly specific warning.”

 

“He’s talking about Chanyeol,” Sehun interjects. “I’ll explain later.”

 

Zitao nods, looking slightly confused and Junmyeon starts to move back to his desk.

 

“Now, if the two of you won’t mind, I have to get back to work. I’m very busy- “

 

The absolute worst possible thing that could’ve happened, happens. Junmyeon stubs his toe.

 

“Oh, fuck me,” he huffs, and immediately looks up, wide eyed and face full of regret.

 

“Yifan, I swear, if you- “

 

There’s a poof, and a tall man in a red satin suit appears, sunglasses and smirk plastered on his face. He stretches his arms out as Junmyeon turns to him and rolls his eyes.

 

“You called?”

 

Sehun leans over to Zitao.

 

“That’s Wu,” he whispers, as Junmyeon gawks at the newcomer.

 

“Him and Junmyeon are kinda married but they also hate each other in public, it’s a complicated relationship.”

 

“God and Satan are fucking?”

 

“Uh huh, that sums it up pretty well.”

 

Junmyeon, meanwhile, is busy yelling at Yifan.

 

“-many times have I told you, you can’t just show up in here like this! There is protocol to be followed, and you can’t leave your office unattended! If you could stop spying on me and listening to the conversations in my office, that would be appreciated a lot, thank you very mu- “

 

“Oh, come on Myeon, just a quick visit. You tempted me, and you know temptation is my specialty. Besides, Baekhyun is in charge back at the office- “

 

Junmyeon cuts Yifan off.

 

“That’s even more reason to be worried! You know what, I’m banishing you, right now- “

 

“Junmyeon, no- “

 

“-Zitao, come here and put your hand on his head.”

 

Zitao freezes, looking between the two of them.

 

“W-what?”

 

Yifan turns to him and his eyes flash with recognition.

 

“Oh hey, you showed up a full cycle ago, didn’t you? I gave you a chance at redemption, how did that work out? Zitao, right?”

 

Zitao starts to reply but Junmyeon speaks for him instead.

 

“Yes, yes, we get it, you take care of redemptions. He’s an angel now, that should speak for itself. Now Zitao, get over here and put your hand on his head before I make you a human soul again.”

 

Zitao scrambles to place his hand gently on Yifan’s styled hair, and smiles nervously at him. Junmyeon hums in satisfaction.

 

“Okay, now when I tell you to, push down, okay?”

 

“Why aren’t you doing this yourself, Junmyeon?”, asks Yifan calmly, barely paying attention to Zitao’s hand on his head. “Tell me why you aren’t doing it yourself and I won’t resist.”

 

“Yifan- “

“Please? I’ll stop spying on you, just tell me why.”

 

Junmyeon sighs.

 

“I’m not- I’m not tall enough to be able to reach your head.”

 

Yifan smiles, a big gummy smile that crinkles the skin around his eyes.

 

“Thank you,” he says, smugly staring at Junmyeon. “That’s all I needed to hear.”

 

Junmyeon rolls his eyes.

 

“Push down now, Zitao.”

 

Zitao pushes down, and Yifan disappears in a cloud of red smoke.

 

“Ah great, now my entire office is going to smell like him,” Junmyeon grumbles.

 

“How did I  _ do  _ that?”, says Zitao, staring at his own hands.

 

“That’s a simple banishment. I helped you through it since you weren’t banishing a normal demon.”

 

“You know,” Sehun says, “my way is more effective.”

 

Junmyeon arches an eyebrow.

 

“Which is?”

 

Sehun shrugs, as if the answer was obvious and Junmyeon was just out of touch.

 

“Point at them and yell  _ begone, thot! _ ”

 

Junmyeon’s eyebrow starts to twitch as he stares at Sehun. The room is absolutely quiet for a few seconds, and none of them move. Junmyeon finally whirls around and moves towards his desk after what feels like an eternity.

 

“I’ve had enough drama for today, time for you to leave.”

 

Zitao and Sehun nod hurriedly and start to move out the door, Zitao thanking Junmyeon profusely for his new status as an angel, and Sehun asking Junmyeon to come over for dinner sometime.

 

Junmyeon tells them to take care of themselves and settles in his chair, ready to finish the pending paperwork. A red spark floats in front of him and explodes into the shape of a heart.

 

Fucking Yifan.

 

\---

 

It goes a lot more smoothly than Sehun expects it to. When he walks into his house for the first time in three months, Zitao walking in with him seems right. Perfect. As if the universe is in the correct place.

 

Still, Sehun freezes up when Zitao follows him into his living room. He turns to Zitao, who’s looking around the room with awe in his eyes, even though there’s nothing remotely special about it. Sehun collects furniture, but since he only buys one piece at a time, his living room- and most of his house- is just a mismatched jumble of various styles. To Sehun, it’s home, but he’s still concerned that it seems strange.

 

“Are you sure about this? Like, I know this whole thing is a sudden change, and maybe you should just file to get your own place. I don’t know if you’ll want to stay w- “

 

Zitao just gently grabs his hand and smiles at him.

 

“It’s perfect. If you want me here, I mean.”

 

“No, no, of course I do. I just… I don’t want you to feel like you’re rushing into this, or I don’t know, the furniture in my house is too ugly or something- “

 

“Relax. This is amazing. It seems like…”

 

Zitao trails off, letting his eyes wander across the room before they come back to meet Sehun’s.

 

“Like home.”

 

Zitao smiles, and Sehun can’t help but smile back. Their hands are still comfortably linked together, and when Zitao tugs him closer, Sehun goes willingly.

 

“May I have this dance?”, Zitao asks, in this ridiculously high pitched posh voice, and Sehun doesn’t know if he wants to slap him or kiss him.

 

“You’re so fucking stupid.”

 

Zitao just hums and pulls him closer, starting to move them around in an odd rhythm, and Sehun rolls his eyes as he rests his arms on Zitao’s shoulders.

 

“There isn’t even any music playing, idiot,” Sehun says, but his tone is too fond, and it doesn’t match the words he says.

 

Zitao twirls Sehun, who yelps, and then allows him to settle back into his arms before Zitao  grins at him.

 

“There’s always music when you’re around.”

 

Idiot.

 

\---

 

Their first night in Sehun’s house passes comfortably. It’s so natural for Sehun to have Zitao next to him in his custom king-sized bed.

 

It’s theirs, now.

 

Zitao is understandably curious about what being an angel entails, and though Sehun had already explained the basics to him, they needed to get into the nitty gritty.

 

Sehun isn’t a guardian. He’s too antsy for that, and he never enjoyed that line of work anyways. Instead, he worked odd jobs. The occasional redemption, but mostly paperwork and helping people get out of IKEAs when he goes furniture and bedsheet shopping.

 

It was pretty obvious that Zitao would never be able to handle a desk job. He was made for field work, so Sehun suggested being a guardian back when they first thought about him applying to become an angel, but they never brought it up after that.

 

Now, however, they’re sitting across from each other on Sehun’s tiny, minimalistic dining table, trying to figure it out.

 

“Wait, so are guardians bound to a human for that human’s full life or…”

 

Zitao trails off hesitantly.

 

“Well,” Sehun starts. “Guardians usually skip from person to person, only helping in dire situations, or providing hope when most required. Sometimes, they attach themselves to a particularly… troubling case.”

 

“Junmyeon said they had someone attached to me for a while. Said it didn’t really work.”

 

Sehun blinks.

 

“Oh,” he breathes out gently, “I didn’t know your case was that bad. That can happen sometimes, if the human can’t handle it all despite the angel’s efforts. Wow, that must have been horrible. Did Junmyeon tell you who it was?”

 

“Someone called Zhoumi, I think.”

 

Sehun nods.

 

“Yeah, makes sense. We hardly see him around here, he attaches quite a lot.”

 

There’s a heavy silence that seeps into the space between them, until Zitao clears his throat.

 

“So, guardians get to go and just… frolic in the mortal world? With some small bursts of positivity here and there?”

 

“Not how I would put it, but sort of?”, Sehun says, nose wrinkling.

 

“Do you get to come too?”

 

Sehun shrugs in response, tapping the table.

 

“I mean, I could come on my days off?”

 

Zitao brightens.

 

“We can go to the sea together! I love the sea. I lived right next to the sea, it was so- “

 

He pauses abruptly, as if his own words had just registered in his mind.

 

Sehun raises his eyebrows, slightly concerned.

 

“How do you know that? You shouldn’t know that.”

 

Zitao looks confused, and disoriented, but he tries to explain it away.

 

“I guess the memory wipe is a bit shaky. What with the new occupation and everything.”

 

Sehun nods, though he isn’t convinced.

 

“Yeah, that must be it.”

 

Sehun feels slightly uneasy about it. Memory wipes are put into place for a reason, and there’s a sudden tension in the room that’s whispering to him that something is wrong.

 

He ignores it.

 

\---

 

“You’re left-handed, right?”, asks Sehun, seated on the couch with his legs on the coffee table as he holds Zitao’s guardianship application form and a pen in his hand.

 

Zitao looks at him from where he’s standing near the fridge, retrieving a water bottle.

 

“Uh, yeah, yeah. Well, I’m technically ambidextrous, since I play the guitar with my right hand because left-handed guitars are a pain to find, but I favor my left hand, yeah.”

 

Sehun doesn’t ask how Zitao knows he plays guitar. He shouldn’t know this much, and it’s been troubling him how Zitao seems to remember random details that should’ve been lost in the memory wipe.

 

He doesn’t bring it up though, since Zitao tends to get really disoriented if he’s asked how he knows some of these things, and it’s heart wrenching to see him look so lost and confused, so instead he just lets it slide by, making a note to maybe eventually talk to Junmyeon about it.

 

He marks the little box that says left-handed, moving to fill the rest of the form as Zitao settles on the couch near him and puts his head on Sehun’s shoulder, watching Sehun work.

 

“Why do they need to know all this anyways?”, he asks, quickly skimming over the details required. “I mean, favorite color, seriously? What does that have to do with guardianship?”

 

“Well,” says Sehun, turning to Zitao, “They need to make sure your clothes are to your liking, you know. I can’t have my boyfriend wear clothes he doesn’t like.”

 

“They choose our clothes too?”

 

“Oh yeah, yeah. Thing is, we have a sort of exchange program going between heaven and hell right now. We sent down an angel and they sent up a demon, for more ‘workplace unity’, as they put it. The angel we sent down ended up being so good at the chaos that he had a ton of free time on his hands, and to stop him from literally raising hell, we assigned him with supplying new clothes for guardians. Fashion design is kinda like his passion.”

 

“He sounds like a handful.”

 

Sehun nods as he turns the page, continuing to fill the form.

 

“Baekhyun is honestly a literal demon. He’s more at home in hell than he ever was up here.”

 

“Wow, that’s- “

 

Zitao stops abruptly in the middle of his sentence, pulling away from Sehun’s shoulder and bringing a hand up to his head.

 

“What, what’s wrong?”, asks Sehun, a cold feeling washing over him.

 

“My head, I- “

 

Zitao blinks, and then opens his eyes as wide as he can before squinting.

 

When he finally looks up, he has a shaky smile on his face.

 

“It’s nothing, sunshine. I’m okay.”

 

He’s lying.

 

\---

 

Zitao’s first day in the field goes smoothly enough. He makes a bunch of kids laugh, gives directions to a stranger, talks to a lonely old man for a full hour. Standard stuff.

 

Sehun’s worried though. Really worried.

 

Even though Zitao comes back with a million things to tell Sehun, there’s still something off. When Zitao asks if they can go to bed early, he complies, pretending that he thinks it’s because the first day on the job is tiring, but he knows it’s not that.

 

He lets Zitao pull him close, but he watches how Zitao drifts off almost immediately, and how troubled he looks in his sleep. Zitao  _ always  _ looks calm and happy when he’s asleep.

 

Sehun watches as Zitao twitches and then almost whimpers, and brings a hand up to stroke his face, get him to calm down. He relaxes pretty quickly, but Sehun is still worried.

 

Something is horribly wrong.

 

\---

 

Zitao’s fourth day on the job starts off as usual. He wakes up first, presses a kiss to Sehun’s face and wakes him up with a gentle whisper of “Good morning, angel”, and makes them breakfast. Sehun leaves before him, since the desk jobs start off earlier than Zitao’s batch of field assignments, and Zitao steals at least twenty kisses before he lets Sehun go.

 

New guardians and transfers are assigned a handler, so that they don’t accidentally do something against protocol, so Zitao reports to Kyungsoo, his handler for the past two days.

 

It’s all the same as before. Kyungsoo tells him where he’ll be assigned and Zitao nods, and steps through the door they’ve somehow linked to Earth. Except today, Kyungsoo asks why Zitao looks so strained, and Zitao blames it on his headache.

 

He isn’t lying. Sort of.

 

He steps into the sunshine and smiles. Sehun really knew what he was talking about when he said Zitao was made for the field.

 

It’s a strange job. You just sort of amble around until you feel like someone could use a little kindness, a little hope.

 

Junmyeon had been right about becoming an angel. It was nothing flashy, more of a gentle change. He’s more intuitive, and he knows when people are lying, and it seems like people brighten around him.

 

He likes it.

 

Of course, he doesn’t have nearly as much control over it as the older angels do. He’d heard of how more seasoned angels could get people to calm down with a single word, how their touch literally healed, body and soul both. 

 

But it’s okay, because Zitao enjoys doing this, and he knows that things take time, even if he is an angel now.

 

He signed up for this, and he’s determined to do his best. He’d been meaning to bring it up to Sehun, ask if it was possible he could do anything else, apart from just sit around and make pancakes. When Sehun had brought up applying to be an angel, he knew that that was what he needed.

 

The headaches and slight bursts of disorientation are only minor setbacks, he tells himself. Zitao knows Sehun is worried, and deep down he is too, but he brushes it off, blaming it on the recent lifestyle change. It’s not like anything worse can come out of it.

 

Right?

 

\---

 

He’s half an hour into his day, and Zitao has already rescued a cat from a tree, so he’s feeling pretty good about himself. He’s wandering around, wondering if he should pick up some chocolate in his spare time for Sehun and him, when he spots the girl sitting alone on one of the benches.

 

She looks…

 

Not sad. Not really. More resigned, than anything. 

 

There’s a book lying next to her, lying open and face up, the pages fluttering in the breeze. She doesn’t seem to notice, choosing instead to stare emptily at what seems to be nothing.

 

Zitao gently walks over, and sits down next to her, making sure to let her notice that he’s sitting there, but also keeping enough distance to keep her comfortable. 

 

“Nice weather today, huh?”

 

Zitao is slightly taken aback. He wasn’t expecting her to initiate the conversation, but he’ll take it.

 

“Yeah, the sun makes everything look prettier.”

 

She hums in agreement, finally looking at Zitao. 

 

Zitao feels a sudden twinge in his head, and winces. He’s suddenly a lot more aware of the way that the park bench digs into his back, the way the dirt clings to his fingertips. 

 

“What’s wrong?”, he hears her ask.

 

He blinks, head swimming as he tries to get accustomed to the light again, his headache settling into a dull thump. 

 

“I- Headache. I have a headache.”

 

“Oh,” she says, and Zitao’s vision has cleared enough for him to be able to make out her face. “I didn’t know angels could have headaches.” 

 

Zitao must look startled, because she laughs and waves her hand. 

 

“I’ve had my run-ins with your kind before. One of you attached to me a few years ago, so I think I know how to recognise an angel when I see one.”

 

Zitao nods absently in understanding. 

 

“I’ve never met a human who knows about angels before. Then again, I haven’t been an angel for too long.”

 

“Really?”, she asks. “What does that mean?”

 

Zitao fiddles absently with the railing of the bench, trying to ignore the thrumming in his head. It’s hard to think clearly when it feels like your head is stuffed with cotton which has a million tiny hammers falling on it constantly.

 

“I used to be a human, actually. I died, did all the fancy stuff, fell in love at some point, and now here I am. Took me a few months, but I’d say it was worth it.”

 

“Eventful few months, huh?”

 

Zitao laughs. 

 

“Yeah, yeah, I guess so.”

 

They fall into silence, Zitao not really sure what to say. He’s new to this, and this conversation isn’t exactly  _ normal _ .

 

“I guess you’re here to check on me,” she finally says, breaking the silence. “See what’s wrong, help me out, the works.”

 

“Uh, yeah, I’d like to be able to do that, since it’s my job.”

“It’s not a lot, really. Not angel worthy, I promise.”

 

Zitao watches as she shifts in her seat, still looking preoccupied. He knows heaviness when he sees it, and she definitely has something bothering her.

 

“You know, since I’m here and no one seems to be in extreme distress right now, you might as well talk to me about what’s going on.”

 

She seems to consider his words, and then shrugs, bringing her legs up on the bench as she cracks her knuckles.

 

“It’s weird. A sorta… moral crisis, if you will.”

 

Zitao nods to make sure she knows he’s listening. He enjoys listening to people. Kyungsoo said that it was a good trait for a guardian to have, but Zitao just thinks that it’s an act of basic decency, to be able to listen to someone who needs it. 

 

“Elaborate,” he says, prompting her on.

 

“I just… I want to be kind so badly, you know? Like, I know this sounds really weird, but I really, desperately wish I was kinder. That I was more, I don’t know, more inherently good than I am. That I held more value in kindness than I did in knowledge, or power.”

 

She pauses to take a breath, and Zitao feels an odd sense of understanding, something deep in his bones that tells him that he knows exactly what she means. He shrugs it off. 

 

“Like, I can be horribly manipulative when I want to be, and I try to keep it in check but… I don’t know. At the end of the day I’m just struggling with the fact that I’m not kind. My first instinct is never to be kind.”

 

She trails off, evidently done talking, and the strange feeling hasn’t left Zitao yet, and it’s amplifying his headache. He takes a few seconds to brush it off, push it all to the back of his head, and tries to form an adequate response. 

 

“Well,” he finally says after a few minutes. “Have you ever considered that maybe your want to be kind is what makes you kind?”

 

She sighs quietly.

 

“I get that. I get that questioning of morality indicates presence of morality. But still, I just-”

 

“Feel like it’s not enough?”

 

She nods.

 

“Exactly.”

 

“You know, a few months ago, I felt like what I was doing wasn’t enough. You know what I did?”

 

She looks at him curiously.

 

“What?”

 

“I did  _ something _ about it,” he says. “I applied for a new job, and here I am now. I know that maybe it’s not that simple, but if you really feel like you aren’t doing enough, then maybe you should do more. Questioning your morality is indication of presence of morality, sure, but I guess, to feel more satisfied, you would have to apply your moral sensibilities and see where you stand then. Because you never really know until you try, right? And I’m not saying you aren’t trying, that’s not it. Just… stop overthinking it. Do what you think is kind. That’s all you can do.”

 

He can see her nervously tap her fingers on her knee, and watches as she slowly nods her head.

 

“I suppose you’re right,” she says. 

 

“I suppose I am.”

 

They fall into silence again, and Zitao tries his best to ignore the thumping in his head and the weird feeling in his chest, as he looks down at the pavement, watching the wind blow the leaves on the ground in strange patterns. He feels a gentle hand nudging his shoulder, and he turns to her.

 

“Thank you,” she says, smiling.

 

Zitao stands, stretching as he turns to smile back at her.

 

“It’s my job.”

 

The weird feeling still lingers.

 

\---

 

The jangle of the keys is too loud in Zitao’s head as he opens the door to the house. His headache is still bothering him, and the weird feeling that had settled in his bones that afternoon insists on persisting. 

 

He lets himself fall on the couch. He knows he should do something about his headache, maybe drink something warm or whatever. He remembers Sehun vaguely babbling about how Junmyeon kept giving him tea with various health benefits even though Sehun can’t  _ stand  _ tea if it’s not of the bubble variety, and he wonders if he would be able to find it if he tried. But he’s too tired, too disoriented, so he stays there, face buried in the couch pillows as he tries to pull himself together.

 

He doesn’t know how long he lies there, trying to push down the headache, trying to figure out the unfamiliarity weighing him down. The couch is covered with soft material, but the way it rubs into his skin irritates him, but he’s too tired to do anything about it.

 

He doesn’t hear Sehun come in, doesn’t hear the way Sehun’s humming abruptly stops when he sees Zitao on the couch, doesn’t see how Sehun drops the paperwork he’d brought home to rush to his side. 

 

He does, however, feel Sehun’s hand gently caress his own, but it doesn’t register properly. There’s a slight buzzing in the back of his head, the same feeling he gets whenever Sehun is around, but it’s sluggish. 

 

“Zitao?”

 

It’s Sehun’s voice that actually makes him turn his head, the worry and uncertainty lacing it cutting through the haze in his head as jarringly as possible.

 

“Ah, angel, you’re back.”

 

He’d started to call Sehun angel as a joke, laughing about how endearing saying Sehun’s occupation to refer to him was, but it had quickly become a habit. Sehun was  _ his  _ angel, and Zitao made sure to let Sehun know how much he adored it, letting tenderness creep into his tone whenever he called Sehun that.

 

Now, however, his voice is hoarse, tone strained as he tries to focus on Sehun’s face, the light in the room too bright. 

 

“For Junmyeon’s sake, Zitao, you look horrible.”

 

Zitao tries to smile, and fails.

 

“Thanks. I think I’m just sick. Maybe it’s the flu.”

 

Sehun quietly shakes his head, worry evident on his face.

 

“You aren’t alive, Zitao. You don’t have a human body, not really. We don’t get sick.”

 

“A headache, then. It’s just a headache,” Zitao says, sitting up and bringing his legs off the couch, causing his vision to go blank for a second. 

 

Sehun’s crouching in front of him when his vision clears, and he looks even more worried than before.

 

“Zitao, I don’t think this is-” 

 

“You look stressed. Please don’t be stressed.”

 

Zitao is having a hard time forming coherent thoughts, and all he can tell is that Sehun seems upset, and Zitao doesn’t like it.

 

_ “So if you fucking grew up for once in your life, we wouldn’t be in this situation right now, Mr. Huang!”  _

 

“What?”, he asks, looking for the source of the voice. It’s not Sehun’s, it’s not gentle enough to be Sehun’s.

 

“I didn’t say anything-”

 

Zitao scrambles to stand, even though he’s not sure his legs will be able to support him. That voice, he knows that voice. 

 

Sehun probably stands too, since Zitao can see his face right in front of his, feel his hand on his elbow, but his head, oh god, his  _ head. _

 

The headache has gotten worse, so much so that he can’t even call it a headache anymore, breath shuddering as he tries to get it to stop. Sehun’s hands are on his face, but he can’t feel them anymore, too occupied with trying not to cave in on himself. It feels like his head is a dam about to burst, too much rushing beneath the surface, tension pulling at him, wearing him away. 

 

Sehun’s mouth is moving, he’s saying something, he looks worried, so desperately worried, but Zitao can’t hear anything because the fucking ringing in his ears won’t stop, faintly distorted voices flitting through his head, as colors and faces blur his vision. 

 

“Sehun, please-” 

 

His own voice cuts through the haze, and he can barely make out what he’s saying himself, barely understands what he’s pleading for, because what can Sehun do, what can Sehun do about Zitao falling apart under his hands?

 

Sehun’s really panicked now, Zitao can tell. He can’t feel Sehun’s hand clutch his face with desperation, or hear Sehun’s voice start to break under the strain of the worry he’s feeling, but he knows, he can feel it. 

 

His vision clears enough to see the first tear make its way down Sehun’s face.

 

The dam breaks.

 

The pressure on Zitao’s head lifts, replaced by a rushing wave that knocks him over and keeps him pinned down, blinding him,  _ suffocating  _ him. Places he’s never seen, but he knows he’s lived in, voices he’s never heard but can recognise. 

 

_ Memories. _

 

It’s agony, and he can’t breathe, can’t feel anything except for the way his chest is constricting, the way his heart is hurting. His ears are ringing, and the voices, the  _ voices. _

 

_ “You think you can run? From me? Your fucking father? I give you a roof over your fucking head and you can’t even give me some goddamn respect. You want to cry now, you little fucking bitch? I’ll give you something to cry about.” _

 

_ “There he is. Our favorite supplier. What is it, that nickname they gave you? The Harbinger.” _

 

_ “Well, Mr. Huang, I just assumed you always knew that wars are ugly. And don’t give me that ‘there is no war’ bullshit. There’s always war. Sometimes, innocent people get caught in the crossfire.” _

 

_ “It’s your fault. Your fault entirely. What, did you think organisations just casually bought weapons just to play around? You may be oblivious, that doesn’t make you innocent.”  _

 

_ “Is it that hard for you to be kind? Is it that hard for you to get off your high horse for once?” _

 

They’re horrible, there’s so many, and not one says a kind word, all of them dripping with bitterness and hate. The worst of them is his own, layering over the rest. He hears himself cry, scream, spit words that make him shudder. Whoever this person is, whoever he is, Zitao hates him.

 

And he remembers, fuck, he  _ remembers.  _ It passes him by, his miserable childhood, running away from home and getting caught in the strangest crowd, working his way using his links to the top of the weapons game. Buying, selling, negotiating, not being able to sleep at night because the guilt of what he chooses not to know weighs heavy on him. Firing people who pissed him off, yelling at strangers who bumped into him. He remembers how his last assistant quit on him, snapping about how he needed to be kind at least once in his life, about how he couldn’t run through all of his life with a smirk on his face, poison in his tongue and emptiness in his eyes.

 

And he remembers the last few days of his life, finding out where the products he supplied were going, calling for a stop to production, his investors swooping in and mocking him, telling him to suck it up and not act childish. He remembers the punch that broke his main investor’s nose, the way he hit him till he couldn’t see anymore, the man lying on the floor, unconscious. Not dead, not by a long shot, but still terrifying. 

 

He remembers the “accident” too, though he doubts it was an accident. Not after the stunt he pulled. He remembers bleeding out on the middle of the street, his coffee spilt over his hands.

 

Huang Zitao comes back to life.

 

He wishes he hadn’t.

 

\---

 

Sehun’s sobbing as he clutches Zitao as close to him as possible, holding him up while Zitao cries with his eyes screwed shut. Occasionally, Zitao’ll let out a strangled yell, and Sehun will sob even more, trying not to move Zitao too much, because he seems to be in so much pain, and Sehun can’t handle it. 

 

He doesn’t know what’s happening, he doesn’t understand, all he knows is that Zitao is hurting, and he can’t do anything about it. He’s standing in the middle of the living room, trying his best to hold up Zitao because he can’t risk moving him to make him lie on the couch, not with the pain he seems to be in.

 

He knew the headaches were bad news,  _ he knew it. _

 

He’s trying not to shake as he cries, gently carding his hands through Zitao’s hair, as if that could fix anything. 

 

Sehun doesn’t know how long he’s been standing here, holding Zitao up while Zitao shudders and cries out, but gradually, Zitao starts to calm down, the shaking subsiding. 

 

Sehun gently nudges him to the couch, adjusting him so he’s lying down, and crouches on the floor, wiping his own tears away. 

 

Zitao lies there, eyes still screwed shut, and Sehun still doesn’t understand anything, but his heart hurts so much. 

 

It’s another fifteen minutes before Zitao actually opens his eyes, and another half an hour before he says anything intelligible. Sehun holds him as he cries, as he screams words that Sehun can’t make out. Zitao’s shuddering in his arms again, but this time it’s worse, because Sehun can tell Zitao is grounded, that he can feel all of this pain so much more than before.

 

When Zitao finally calms down, he tells Sehun all about it, tells Sehun all the horrible things he’s done, all the pain he’s caused. He glosses over the pain that’s been inflicted on him, too caught up in the knowledge of the fact that he  _ hurt  _ people. 

 

Sehun watches Zitao tear himself apart from the inside out.

 

He can’t do anything about it. 

 

\---

 

The minute Zitao wakes up, he pushes himself out of Sehun’s grasp. They’d fallen asleep like that, Sehun cradling Zitao, hands in his hair, chin on his head.

 

Sehun’s jostled awake as Zitao wrenches himself out of his hold, and blearily reaches out to gently touch Zitao’s face, to comfort him, but Zitao shrinks away like he’s been burnt.

 

Sehun thought he knew heartbreak when he held a screaming Zitao in his arms. But this, this hurts even more.

 

“Zitao?”, he asks, and his voice sounds shaky and on the brink of tears even to him.

 

“Sunshine, I don’t-“

 

Zitao sounds choked up too, his hand gripping the couch pillow way too tight. Sehun wants to reach out to grab his hand, stoke his thumb over Zitao’s knuckles, but he’s scared, scared that Zitao will pull away again. 

 

“What is it, what’s wrong? Is it your head? Do I-”

 

“I don’t- Sehun, I don’t-”

 

He pauses, and takes a deep breath, trying to collect himself. Sehun can feel him hurting, can feel the pain boil inside him, and he  _ hates  _ it. He doesn’t know when Zitao’s emotions and feeling mixed into his own, but now he really feels it, really  _ understands  _ just how deep it goes.

 

“What do I do? Tell me, what can I do to help? I want to make it go away, Zitao, tell me what to do to make it go away.”

 

“I don’t want to hurt you, please, I don’t want to hurt you.”

 

Zitao’s voice seems to have lost all of its trademark sureness, the confidence that makes itself known when he talks about Sehun nowhere to be found, leaving behind shaky words and hoarse tones.

 

Sehun feels the way Zitao sounds, and he doesn’t know what to say, what to do.

 

_ I don’t want to hurt you. _

 

“You could never hurt me, please, just help me understand, what’s happening?”

 

Zitao’s crying now, and it’s like last night all over again, the uncontrollable sobbing, the way Zitao seems to curl in on himself like everything is too much, the haunted look in his eyes.

 

This time though, Zitao doesn’t let Sehun hold him, and Sehun’s never been good with words, never been good with what to say to someone in pain, no matter how much he loves them. It’s one of the reasons he’d never make a good guardian, Sehun doesn’t know how to deal with suffering.

 

But this is Zitao, so he tries, tries to ask him what’s wrong, why Zitao would  _ ever  _ think that he could hurt Sehun, but there’s only so much Sehun can do when Zitao shrinks away every time Sehun tries to hold his hand, only so much he can do to not start sobbing himself.

 

Zitao finally calms himself down, and his eyes are emptier than Sehun’s ever seen them, but at least he’s looking at Sehun, and for now, Sehun will take it. He’ll take whatever Zitao’s willing to give him.

 

“I don’t- don’t  _ deserve _ you, Hun-ah, I don’t. The things I’ve done, the way I’ve made people hurt-“ 

 

Sehun’s already shaking his head.

 

“No, no Zitao, that wasn’t you. Not really. It was years of- of trauma, and pain, and-“

 

“You don’t know the things I’ve done, Sehun, you  _ don’t.  _ You’ve not seen what I did.”

 

Sehun would be lying if he said he fully understood. Of course, he knows why it would be so traumatic to see your past and realize you had a life that didn’t align with your current morality. But he doesn’t understand, not truly. He’s never had to struggle with morals, and seeing Zitao so unnerved over something that comes so naturally to him is strange.

 

He fails to understand the nature of the human soul. Zitao may be an angel now, but his memories are human. It comes down to the fact that Zitao remembers hurting people, something that he can’t stomach, not now, not after redemption and Sehun and a fresh new soul without layers and layers of trauma, gunking up his consciousness like rust forming over metal.

 

For Zitao, it’s agony. It truly is. To see himself, weighed down by so much, harden and sharpen until he’s nothing but a weapon. Zitao can’t bear the idea of being made of steel, sharp and cold, heart of diamond and ice for bones. Not when he fell in love with someone as soft and light as sunshine in the morning.

 

Which is why he doesn’t let Sehun touch him.

 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he chokes out, again, almost breathless. “I don’t want to hurt you, sunshine.”

 

The term of endearment is misplaced, but he can’t help it.

 

Sehun refuses to listen to Zitao, going on and on about how Zitao could never hurt him.

 

All Zitao can see is his investor, bloodied and broken on the floor.

 

But Sehun persists. It’s truly beautiful, Sehun is truly beautiful. Zitao doesn’t deserve him, has never deserved him.

 

Sehun can tell him how his memories aren’t him, not really, all he wants, but all Zitao knows is that he  _ hurt  _ people, and if he’s not careful, he could hurt  _ Sehun. _

 

It’s painful for Zitao to pull away from Sehun, when all he wants to do is hold him close until the pain goes away, because Sehun makes the pain go away, Sehun makes things  _ better. _ Because Sehun is loving, and gentle, and caring. Because Sehun is perfect.

 

Sehun is perfect. Zitao already knew that, even without the memories, but seeing the things Zitao has done just makes it solidify into a heavy little ball in the pit of his stomach.

 

Yes, Sehun is perfect.

 

Zitao doesn’t deserve perfection.

 

\---

 

Sehun texts Junmyeon as soon as he can. Junmyeon would know what to do, he tells himself. Junmyeon always knows what to do. 

 

All he gets in response is vague gibberish about memory wipes being eroded by the switch from a human soul to an angel. Junmyeon, it seems, is as helpless in this situation as Sehun is. 

 

“We really can’t do anything about it,” is what Junmyeon tells him when Sehun calls him, frantic and worried, Zitao still curled up on the couch in the living room, eyes screwed shut. 

 

“Is he always going to hurt like this? Is he always going to be in pain?”

 

Junmyeon must hear the strain in his voice, and he rushes to comfort him. 

 

“No, no, Sehun, he’ll be okay. I promise, he’ll be okay. Right now, he’s probably just confused, okay? He has a whole lifetime of memories to sift through, and from what I know about him, it wasn’t the best life.”

 

“He says he’s scared he’ll hurt me,” says Sehun, and he knows the tremble in his voice can be heard over the phone. 

 

The sharp intake of breath Junmyeon takes grates at Sehun’s ears.

 

“You have to understand, Sehun. Right now, it’s like there’s two separate people within him. He’s been living as this trauma free soul who’s never done anything deliberately harmful for quite a while now. This, this has to be a shock to him. When I met him, his moral compass was so prominent, so important to him. Remembering himself doing things he could never dream of…”, Junmyeon trails off, and sighs.

 

I don’t know if you went through his file like you were supposed to as his training angel, but he worked in weapons manufacturing. People took advantage of him. He was complacent, watched everything burn around him. Memories like that for someone with as strong of a moral compass as Zitao’s-”

 

“Will he be okay, Junmyeon? That’s all I want to know.”

 

“It’ll take time, Sehun. But I’m confident he’ll recover. He’ll get past it, realise that that wasn’t him, not really. If you try to convince him of that, he’ll accept it more easily.”

 

Sehun doesn’t answer, too caught up in worrying, eyes fixed on the doorway to the living room. 

 

“Sehun?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“If it comes down to it, if he agrees, I can try and wipe his memory again.”

 

Sehun stays silent.

 

“I promise we won’t have to do that, but it’s an option.”

 

Sehun waits until he hears the soft click on the other end of the line, signifying that Junmyeon has hung up, before he sinks to the floor, phone falling out of his hand.

 

_ We really can’t do anything about it. _

 

\---

 

Sehun doesn’t go to work for the next week. Instead, he holds Zitao, whispers to him, cries to him. Explains to Zitao how his memories aren’t him.

 

Zitao still doesn’t want to touch Sehun, too scared that he’ll hurt him. 

 

He’s not told Sehun the whole story even now, just broken bits and pieces here and there. All Sehun can gather is that Zitao was someone powerful, and was ignorant to how that power was being funneled. 

 

Zitao, Sehun gathers, seems to have two kinds of days. He’s not sure which type is worse.

 

There’s the angry days, the days where Zitao just seems to hate and hate and hate, pushing his loathing for “his” actions onto himself, curling under the weight. He paces around, tries to separate what he was from what he is. These are the days when he tries to convince Sehun that he’s better off without Zitao, that Zitao doesn’t deserve Sehun. These are the days where if Sehun tries to touch Zitao, Zitao pulls away. 

 

But then there’s the quiet days, days where Zitao wakes up only to stare blankly at the wall, glassy look in his eyes, subtle clench of his fists barely visible. On these days, it seems, Zitao’s faculties do not seem to extend to memory. Breathing and lying down are about all he can manage.

 

Perhaps Sehun should be thankful for these days, for they seem far less painful for Zitao. But there’s something unsettling, something undeniably chilling about the way Zitao doesn’t recognise him like this, doesn’t respond to Sehun’s voice or Sehun’s hold. Yes, these days may hurt Zitao less, but they destroy Sehun from the inside out.

 

There is, however, a third type of day, as Sehun learns. It happens only one time, but that one time is enough.

 

Thursday morning.

 

Seems like Thursdays are important for them.

 

Another night where Sehun hasn’t been able to sleep. He watches, watches as Zitao wakes up, waiting to see what he’ll do.

 

Zitao stands, and Sehun lets out a sigh. Angry day, then. Truth be told, Sehun’s quiet relieved. One of the many reasons he hasn’t been able to sleep was because the last two days were quiet days, and he’s still shaken up by them.

 

Zitao, however, doesn’t seem like he’s going to go around breaking things anytime soon.

 

“Zitao?”, he asks, tone gentle, hushed. Careful, he tells himself. This is new, he needs to be careful.

 

Zitao blinks, and Sehun can see quiet recognition splay across his face.

 

Is this it? Is it over?

 

“Sunshine,” Zitao breathes out, whisper of a smile forming on his face. 

 

Perfect, yeah? Sehun knows what he has to do. Run and jump into Zitao’s arms, hold him tight, tell him how much he loves him, how seeing him in pain hurts him so so much. Problems fixed, pain gone, everything back to normal.

 

But Sehun, Sehun is an angel, and he’s seen firsthand how events are weaved and how hope is fleeting. He knows it’s not that simple.

 

He hopes he’s wrong, though, and for a second it seems that way, Zitao’s smile remaining on his face, unwavering.

 

But the very next second, Sehun sees pain take over Zitao’s features and this is the first night all over again, the hurt Zitao felt before the headache disappeared, leaving behind painful memories instead. 

 

The first time, Sehun had been frozen solid in shock. He didn’t know what was happening, and he was scared, not able to do anything. This time, however, he’s not going to let Zitao go through it alone.

 

He rushes to Zitao, cradles his face in his hands, much like the first time. It doesn’t take much for him to make Zitao sit down on the bed, and he sits facing him. 

 

“Tell me what’s happening, please. I’ve got you, Zitao, I’ve got you.”

 

Zitao winces. 

 

“Sehun-”

 

He squeezes his eyes shut, before taking a sharp breath, jerking backwards as he opens his eyes.

 

“No, you- Sehun, no, please, I don’t want to hurt you-”

 

“Stop saying that, please, just tell me what’s wrong. It’s been so long since this started and I still don’t understand why you won’t let me near you. Zitao, please, I can fix this-”

 

“You don’t understand, I  _ hurt  _ people. I’m not- I’m not a good person, Sehun. I don’t deserve you, I don’t deserve any of this. You’re too good and kind and perfect, I could never be something you deserve, not after what I’ve done.”

 

Sehun’s heard this before, and it doesn’t hurt his heart any less each time. 

 

“That wasn’t you, I’ve told you this so many times before, Zitao. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t the you who woke up and dragged me to get ice cream, it wasn’t the you who helped that cat off the tree even though it almost took out your eye, it wasn’t the you who twirled me across the living room just because you were feeling happy. That was trauma, circumstances clouding morality-”

 

“ _ Questioning of morality indicates presence of morality”,  _ Zitao says, and he sounds like he’s quoting someone. “I was a fucking idiot.” 

 

“What?”

 

“That girl, I- Never mind, it doesn’t matter. I just- It’s so easy, when being kind comes naturally to you, to just dismiss any concerns about it.”

 

Sehun winces at that, but he lets Zitao continue.

 

“This, this all feels so wrong, Sehun. I know who I was, I know what I did. Say what you will, that was still me. Somehow, I can be driven to that point. I’m supposed to be an  _ angel  _ now, Sehunnie, how can I do that when I’m not inherently good? I-”

 

Sehun breathes in as he sees Zitao start to shake. He let Zitao go through this alone before. Not this time.

 

“No, no, that’s not how it works.”

 

Zitao opens his mouth to speak, but Sehun grabs his hand. He can see Zitao struggle not to pull away, but he hold on.

 

“Listen to me, okay? Can you do that for me? Please, just- just try to listen to me.”

 

Zitao looks down, and Sehun takes that as an invitation to continue. 

 

“Look, you have all your memories, right? You know exactly who you were, and you know who you are now. So just- just tell me this much, okay? What do you find beautiful?”

 

Zitao’s already shaking his head.

 

“Sehun, that doesn’t-”

 

Sehun puts his other hand on Zitao’s cheek, gently stroking his cheekbone. 

 

“Please, just tell me.” 

 

Zitao’s still looking down as he takes in a shaky breath, hand still limp in Sehun’s. 

 

“Uh, okay, what do I find beautiful? The sun in the morning, the wind when it’s the middle of the afternoon and it’s too hot, and the ocean, god, the ocean.”

 

He pauses, and Sehun has to hold back tears for some reason.

 

“What else? The stars, and…”

 

Zitao finally looks up, meeting Sehun’s eye, and he’s  _ there,  _ Zitao is there, and his mind isn’t clouded with frustration or pain or emptiness.

 

“You.”

 

Sehun has to choke back a sob, because Zitao says it so sincerely, almost reverently. But he can’t break down, not now, not when Zitao needs him.

 

“Okay,” he says, struggling to get the words out. “Okay, tell me, do you think any of those things are evil, or undeserving?”

 

“What?”

 

Zitao looks genuinely horrified at the suggestion.

 

“What?”, he repeats. “No, no, Hun-ah, never. I don’t understand-”

 

“Then you aren’t undeserving either.”

 

“That’s not how it works-”

 

Sehun cuts him off.

 

“In beauty there echoes a speck of our souls, Zitao.”

 

Total silence. It’s just the two of them, staring at each other. Zitao has tears brimming in his eyes, and all Sehun can think about is the goofy grin he gave him when they first met. 

 

“What you find beautiful, what you love, what you want to be. That makes you more than what you actually think you are. And you, you’re so kind and good. Even after all that pain, all that trauma, you  _ still  _ made it to redemption. You became an angel. Zitao, it’s never about how kind you are, how good you are. It’s about how kind you want to be, how good you’re willing to be.”

 

Zitao stares at him, silent tears starting to drip down his face. Sehun’s too spent, he can’t say any more if he tried. He never was good with words. 

 

“Sunshine-”

 

Sehun removes his grip from Zitao’s hand. His hand is shaking slightly, tremor almost unnoticeable as he sticks out his pinky finger, gently nudging Zitao’s own. 

 

Zitao looks down, then back up at Sehun. 

 

Sehun can only look at him, and he hopes.

 

Looking and hoping. Sometimes that’s all that can be done.

 

This time, it’s enough.

 

Zitao let his pinky curl over Sehun’s, the first time he’s voluntarily been able to touch him after the memories came back. 

 

Sehun lets out a sob, tightening his hold on Zitao’s finger.

 

It’s enough.

 

\---

 

It’s not fast. Not by any means. But Sehun gets to see Zitao come back, gets to see him understand what Sehun’s been trying to say since the very first day.

 

There are still breakdowns, but now, Zitao lets Sehun touch him. It’s small at first, little brushes here and there, but it’s still  _ there,  _ Zitao is  _ there.  _ He’s not going on about how he doesn’t deserve Sehun, and every time it seems like he’s about to, Sehun links their pinkies together. 

 

Sehun realises that Zitao has started to have trouble sleeping, until he discovers that Zitao immediately relaxes to the sound of Sehun’s voice. On bad days, Sehun talks to Zitao, even sings sometimes, until he sleeps. 

 

It seems like things are starting to stagnate, both of them tip-toeing around each other. Zitao goes back to work, and so does Sehun. It’s a fragile, new normal, too delicate for Sehun’s liking. Until one day, Zitao hands Sehun a file. 

 

“Read this. If you think I’m undeserving after this, I’ll accept it.”

 

Zitao leaves, heading down to the living room, probably, before Sehun can ask him anything. Sehun opens the file.

 

It’s Zitao’s case file, reading Sehun was supposed to do before being assigned to him. He hadn’t opened it though. This time, he does.

 

He reads it, beginning to end, reads everything Zitao did, but more importantly, everything that was done to Zitao. He reads about how even though Zitao facilitated so much pain, the minute he found out, he shut it down. He reads about it all, the insignificant, the misguided, the sacred unique. 

 

He doesn’t have to think twice when he’s done. He drops the file on the bedside table, and goes downstairs, finds Zitao pacing around the living room, and grabs his hand, making him turn around. 

 

There’s so much he wants to say, but he can’t put it into words, so he just does what he can. 

 

“I love you,” he whispers.

 

Sehun leans forward, presses his lips to Zitao’s. For a second, for a split second, he’s scared that Zitao won’t kiss back, but then he feels steady, familiar arms circling his waist. 

 

It’s okay.

 

\---

 

Sehun comes back home after a late shift. Some fucking demon down in hell had decided to set a bunch of hellhounds on a bunch of unsuspecting Parisians. Hellhounds look like labradors, but they’re not nearly as sweet. Everyone in the upstairs office was working overtime to fix the mess, while Wu lead a search party for the chaotic demon in question downstairs. 

 

He walks in, tired. It’s 11 in the night, and he’d skipped lunch. He’s about to settle for leftovers from the fridge, when he hears it from the kitchen. 

 

Humming. 

 

Sehun almost runs into the kitchen, skidding to a halt when he sees Zitao standing there in that stupid Kiss the Cook apron, humming away with a smile on his face as he slides a pancake onto a plate. 

 

Zitao looks up to find Sehun standing there, staring at him in shock. Zitao hasn’t listened to proper music, or hummed, or  _ anything _ since the memories, and now here he stands, smiling at Sehun. 

 

“Oh, angel, you’re back-”

 

Sehun doesn’t let him finish, barreling into him for a hug. Zitao holds him tightly without hesitation.

 

Sehun pulls away, and puts his hands on Zitao’s face.

 

_ “Don’t cry,”  _ he tells himself.  _ “Whatever you do, don’t cry.” _

 

Sehun sobs as he pulls Zitao in for a kiss, and another, and another, and another. 

 

Zitao goes willingly. 

 

“Sunshine,” he mumbles between kisses. “The pancakes are going to get cold-”

 

“Fuck the pancakes,” Sehun hisses. “Fuck, I love you, I love you, I love you.” 

 

Zitao laughs, and all the tension in Sehun’s shoulders disappears. He didn’t even know how much it hurt until it was gone. Zitao leans in, presses their foreheads together, bumps their noses. 

 

He starts humming again. 

 

Sehun’s in his arms again, and suddenly, he feels Zitao twirl him across the kitchen floor. His hands come back to rest on Zitao’s chest, and he can’t stop smiling.

 

“The pancakes smell amazing,” he murmurs, as they sway together.

 

Zitao laughs. 

 

“Michelin star restaurant in Berlin, what do you say?”

 

His Zitao is back.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> and there it is! I hope you enjoyed it, I really do.
> 
> I might make this a series, with a bunch of spin-off oneshots.
> 
> tell me how you feel about that! thank you for reading, have an amazing day!


End file.
